The US Marine Corps expects to strengthen its arsenal with anti-ship sea-based missiles. This is stated in a written appeal from the leadership of the corps to the US Congress Committee on the Armed Forces.

“Ground-based anti-ship missiles will enable land-based strikes on ships as part of the overall naval efforts to combat surface targets. The possibility of advanced deployment of these missiles and the survivability of the missile system will increase the striking ability of our naval forces and help deter the enemy’s actions in the key sea territory, ”the statement says.

The Marines sent an appeal to the Armed Forces Committee on the background of the draft military budget for 2021 submitted by the Trump administration. It provides for a serious increase in the arsenal of high-precision missile weapons for the US Navy. The US Congress controls the entire process of budget adoption, so the command of different types of armed forces send such letters to the committees with justification of spending on new weapons.

Marine HIMARS

One of the components of the new ground-based anti-ship arsenal should be the NMESIS system - an upgraded version of the HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), which will be converted to launch the new fifth-generation anti-ship missile Naval Strike Missile (NSM). These missiles are supplied to the US Navy by Raytheon in conjunction with the Norwegian Kongsberg Defense Aerospace.

  • American MLRS HIMARS
  • © US Army

The basic version of the MLRS HIMARS is a launcher placed on a light armored truck. Her missiles of the "ground-to-ground" class are capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 300 km.

In turn, NSM anti-ship missiles have a firing range of about 185 km and fly at low altitudes to evade radar detection. Naval Strike Missile has an infrared target detection system for targeting an individual target in a dense group of enemy ships.

“The Naval Strike Missile is identical in its capabilities to the over-the-horizon combat complex deployed on the warships of the coastal zone, and thus, the Marine Corps will have at its disposal a missile with high maneuverability, the ability to fly at extremely low altitude and the ability to land on the goal is from the side, not from top to bottom, ”says a statement sent to Congress by the leadership of the Marine Corps.

According to experts, the armament of the US Marine Corps with anti-ship missiles meets the Pentagon's plans to endow these forces with new qualities. If the previous strategy that was used during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, implied the use of the Marines as a "lite version" of the land army, now they will become an addition to the US Navy.

"The US Navy operates on the principle of" responding to certain challenges. " Therefore, in the foreseeable future, they see certain tasks for which it is necessary to provide the marine corps with additional anti-ship weapons, ”Alexander Zhilin, head of the Center for the Study of Public Applied National Security Problems, explained in an interview with RT.

New opportunities

In addition to the modified HIMARS, the US Marines are armed with Tomahawk missiles. Such plans were announced on March 4 by the commandant of the corps, General David Berger, during his speech in Congress.

  • Launch of the Tomahawk missile from an American destroyer
  • Reuters
  • © Woody Paschall / US Navy photo

“Tomahawk missile is one of the means to realize our goals. This may be the answer, the first step towards a long-term solution that can be developed in five, six, seven years. But we need small installations to be able to conduct accurate fire over long distances and be able to pose a threat to the naval forces of the enemy when deployed both on the ship and on land, ”said the commandant of the corps.

So General Berger substantiated his request for the purchase of 48 Tomahawk missiles, which were previously supplied only for the needs of the fleet.

Earlier ground-based modifications of the Tomahawk missiles were banned by the INF Treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. However, last year, the Donald Trump administration decided to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the treaty.

This step opens up new opportunities for the US military to purchase such missiles: in 2021, the Pentagon intends to purchase $ 402 million of such missiles from Raytheon Corporation, the military publication Task & Purpose reports.

In addition, the U.S. Navy intends to purchase from the Raytheon 451 a technical upgrade kit for the Tomahawks already in service - they will be transformed into Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST) sea missiles and will be able to hit both stationary ground and moving sea targets at ranges up to 1, 6 thousand km.

At the same time, analysts believe that the need to modernize HIMARS systems and Tomahawk missiles indicates a slight lag in the US in the field of sea-based missiles.

“It will be necessary to develop new types of missiles, because Tomahawks are a very old development. They were adopted in the 1970s, that is, they are already more than 40 years old. It can be expected that a new type of missiles will appear in service soon, more accurate, reminiscent of the Russian "Caliber", political scientist Sergei Sudakov, a correspondent of the Academy of Military Sciences, suggested in an interview with RT.

At the same time, he emphasized that the very fact of the return to operation of weapons previously prohibited by the INF Treaty gives true reasons for Washington to withdraw from the treaty.

“Of course, everything that was done to get out of the INF Treaty was done exclusively for the American lobby. Of course, they first created new missiles and returned to operation previously prohibited, and then they already left the contract, ”Sudakov claims.

Pacific Rim

The main source of tension between the United States and China in the Pacific Ocean is the territorial dispute over the South China Sea and the group of Paracel Islands located in it, as well as the Spratly Archipelago. They are claimed by several states at once: China, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

  • South China Sea Attack Carrier Group
  • AFP
  • © Erwin Jacob V. MICIANO / Navy Office of Information

The islands are of strategic importance, as sea routes connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans through the Malacca and Singapore Straits pass by them. Vessels sailing from Europe, India and the Middle East to Japan, China and Korea go this way.

US ships regularly pass by disputed islands as part of operations to maintain "freedom of navigation." China criticizes such actions, considering them an encroachment on its sovereignty.

In addition, Beijing has repeatedly protested the military cooperation and joint exercises of the United States and Taiwan, whose independence the PRC does not recognize.

According to Sergey Sudakov, the current US concern about the situation in this region is explained by the fact that in the person of Beijing Washington for the first time received a full-fledged opponent in both the trade and the military sphere.

“China is actively investing in military technology and is actively closing the gap in the field of precision weapons, including hypersonic. China is very seriously modernizing its forces and, if necessary, can give a serious rebuff to America. It understands perfectly well and the American military leadership is so afraid of it, ”Sudakov concluded.